For some reason that is beyond me, apart from the lure of at least some fascinating places, I have found myself undertaking the following crazy sequence of keynote addresses and papers over the next five weeks:

Lenin defines a putsch as an attempt at insurrection that is ‘nothing but a circle of conspirators or stupid maniacs, and has aroused no sympathy among the masses’ (Collected Works, Volume 22, p. 355). The Kornilov putsch of August-September 1917 was a conservative conspiracy, led by General Kornilov and supported by the old aristocracy, landowners and capitalists. It sought to impose its will by deception, force and old patterns of deference, first on parts of the army so that the conspiracy could achieve its aims and then on the people. The putsch disintegrated when Bolsheviks and SRs infiltrated Kornilov’s wavering troops and persuaded them either to refuse to fight or to defect. The putsch gave the Bolsheviks their chance, since the vast majority of workers and peasants swung over to their side and enabled the October Revolution.

Applied to scholarly work: picture yourself listening to a weak paper that relies the support of a few heavyweights. During the discussion that follows, begin your response with: ‘Putschist! Your argument is nothing other than putschist, just like Kornilov!’ Or, if you operate with brittle American politeness, you may say: ‘Thankyou for your wonderful and insightful paper. However, I would like to ask you why it is given to the mentality of a putsch, fit only for a circle of conspirators and stupid maniacs …’

2. The Kursk salient.

A salient may be defined as a feature of the battlefield projecting into enemy territory. It is surrounded on three sides by the enemy, rendering the troops in the salient vulnerable to being encircled and cut off. The enemy line facing a salient is defined as a ‘re-entrant’ (that is, a reverse salient). If the salient is long and narrow it is called a ‘deep salient’, which is susceptible to being ‘pinched out’ across the base. If it is ‘pinched out’, the salient becomes a ‘pocket’ in which the defenders are trapped.

The Kursk salient appeared on the eastern front in 1943. Since the Red Army tacticians had long realised that the Germans would attack there during the summer campaign, they developed an innovative strategy of high-concentration, well-camouflaged, multi-layer defences that were 250 kms deep. For the first time during World War II a German blitzkrieg was absorbed, blunted and turned back in a devastating counter-attack that broke the Wehrmacht and essentially won the war.

Applied to, say, literary analysis, one may venture a bold new, ‘Kursk salient’, theory that appears to its critics highly vulnerable. Salivating at the prospect of pinching out the saliential theory and creating a pocket that may be captured, your opponents set out to attack. In response, you develop a strategy like the Red Army that will lure critics into the trap, absorb their punishment and then destroy them in a crushing counter-attack.

The possibilities are endless: Galileo is the Kursk salient of astronomy, or rather, we now have the Galileo salient. In queer theory we have the Stonewall salient. The subconscious becomes the Freudian salient. Capital is the Marxian salient of economic theory …

I missed most of the debate over the senile splutterings of Larry Hurtado (here, here, here, here and here – for starters). For those not up on this little tiff on the corner of New Testament scholarship, the man who hails from Edinburgh, the gulag evangelico, argues that biblical training should focus on Hebrew, Greek, Latin (desirable), English, German and French – since all of the ‘worthwhile’ scholarship is in these languages.

I don’t want to rehearse the arguments made already, which boil down to the sheer reductionism of Hurtado’s position. Instead, I would add that Hurtado gives voice in his way to what may be called the closing of the western mind. Again and again in my travels through western Europe and North America, that closing becomes ever more noticeable. Cultural defence of the supposedly glorious ‘western’ culture is ever more strident, politics more xenophobic, and borders ‘securitised’. Hurtado’s troubled reflections on the changing nature of his own little plot – New Testament studies – reflects the same mentality: a reactionary defence a perceived golden age that has passed.

If anything, we today, on the average, are far more ignorant than our ancestors where the Bible and the faith are concerned. If anybody is wrongly handling the word of God, it is likely to be us, not our forefathers. Their brains were at least not addled by nonsense and Political Correctness, and I trust the consensus of our forefathers through the centuries rather than the consensus among today’s compromised generation (p. 670).

Our illiterate, lazy culture has spilled over to many professing Christians who have embraced the ways of the pacifist egalitarian. They are willing to read a modified, pacifist, gender neutral Bible, missing what God says so that they can continue to ignore their duties in regards to the ongoing Crusade (self defence). Our modern Bible perversion was written by men using dynamic equivalence. In other words, they are telling you their interpretation and their doctrine, NOT what the manuscripts really say. This can be confirmed by reviewing how the modern Church is using pacifist, fanatically egalitarian and gender inclusive language. Fanatical egalitarianism, gender inclusivity and pacifism wasn’t in the original texts, in the original Bible. it is a modern, feminist and cultural relativist concept born from the Marxist revolution (p. 1119).

Three new articles, one on Marx’s liking for Luther in Sino-Christian Studies, another on Nick Cave and some of his novels in Literature and Theology, and a third, ‘The Patriarch’s Nuts: Concerning the Testicular Logic of Biblical Hebrew’ in the Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality. Joseph Gelfer also has some reflections – ‘The Boer’s Nuts‘ – on the tricky process of passing this one through the peer review process.

All of which made me realise that it really needs a companion piece. After some reflection I hit on a suitable title: The Matriarch’s Muff.

Criticism of Heaven and Earth (paperback)

The complete five-volume set, available from Haymarket Books at a very reasonable price (click on the image).

Marxist Criticism of the Hebrew Bible

Completely revised and largely rewritten. Published by Bloomsbury and available now in various formats on their webpage (click on the image).

The Sacred Economy of Ancient Israel

Due out 10 April, 2015. You can pre-order at a discount price by clicking on the image.

Idols of Nations

The new book, by Christina Petterson and me, on the biblical roots of capitalism. Click on the image to order from Fortress Press.

Lenin, Religion, and Theology

Published by Palgrave Macmillan, with a discounted version if you click on the image.

Nick Cave: A Study of Love, Death and Apocalypse

25% discount on paperback: click on image and enter RBOER as discount code. This is the first critical monograph on Nick Cave, focusing on his engagements with religion in music, novels, plays, films and poetry.